ALTERNATIVE NEWS

15 Feb 2013

This posting is brought to you by Beishon Magic Lanterns of Villeneuve-sur-Lot

The Slog: There are two things paramount (among the many hundreds of things
that concern me about software giants and ISPs) that I find creepily
irksome. One is the tendency to do things without asking the customer;
the other is remorseless selling – but without providing any ability to
answer their brainless suggestions.To explain simply by analogy, how would it be if you went down to
your local supermarket, and as you walked in a sales assistant collared
you to announce, “Hi! I just dropped some duck eggs down your chimney,
because every day is Christmas at Tesbury!” You would recoil, I’d
imagine. You’d probably think this sad person had suffered some form of
brain trauma involving a leakage of intelligence via the ears.But supposing that person then went on to say – wrestling you to the
ground with a smile as he did so – “Don’t forget to stock up on steak,
which is on offer this week at a staggering £3.50 per lb if you buy a
whole cow!” and you then replied “But my freezer is tiny and I’m a
vegetarian”, only to see the mad person walk away muttering “No reply
no reply no reply no reply”.And suppose further still that you went to the service desk and
explained what had happened, and the woman behind it said, “Sorry, that
doesn’t match any of our standard questions, would you like to sit in
one of our chat rooms here and ask other customers that question?”

By Wolf Richter:Russia’s booming underground economy and “endemic corruption” with
its dizzying flows of illicit money, fed largely by oil and gas, is at
the core of an 84-page report by Global Financial Integrity
(GFI). The non-profit in Washington, D.C. is advising the Russian
government on how to tackle this problem. But buried deep inside is a
gem: the amounts and flows of Russian “black money” into and out of
Cyprus.Cyprus (banksters are)is broke. Its banks carry on their books €152 billion in decomposing assets, about 8.5 times
the country’s GDP of €17.8 billion. Of these “assets,” €23 billion are
nonperforming—130% of GDP! The banks also sit on €26 billion in Russian
“black money,” according to a “secret” report by the German version of
the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), leaked last November [here
is my story on the leaked report... The Bailout Of Russian “Black Money” In Cyprus].Now Cyprus needs a bailout of €17.5 billion—100% of GDP—of which €12
billion would go to the putrid banks. It’s the first Eurozone bailout
that is so unpalatable that the German parliament might actually refuse
to nod it through, which would scuttle it.But the GFI report isn’t about Cyprus. It’s about Russia. And for
Russia, as it outlines remedies that the Russian government might want
to pursue. And in doing so, the report fingers the transfer of illicit
Russian capital. The most common mechanics: “misrepresentation of export
earnings” via “endemic misinvoicing of trade,” a form of “trade-based
money laundering,” aided and abetted by a “weak customs administration,”
primarily involving Russia’s crucial energy sector. And that’s where
Cyprus comes into play.

"That Icahn is out there. He can't be bargained with. He can't
be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he
absolutely will not stop, ever, until Ackman is destroyed."

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Everyone recalls the slow motion trainwreck from the afternoon of January 25, when in an epic bitchfest,
hedge fund titans Bill Ackman and Carl Icahn screamed at each other
telephonically for about an hour on CNBC in what was nothing but one big
pissing match. Just over two weeks later, Icahn forced a major squeeze
in the stock when as we wrote previously and as we predicted, he
disclosed a massive 13% stake, or some 14 million shares in the company
built up through stock and calls (essentially costless thanks to Icahn's
recent profits on Netflix). What many may not know however, is that for
Icahn, the HLF stake was nothing more than a $500 million dollar
impulse buy. Why? Because as the chart below, which breaks down the
cumulative purchases of HLF stock by various Icahn's funds,
shows, the billionaire only held some 1.7 million shares until the
January 25 afternoon of his screamfest with Ackman. Then the Monday
after the feud Icahn went ballistic, and proceeded to buy some 120,000
shares on Monday and 197,459 option-equivalent shares, after which he
tapered off his stock purchases while ramping up the call buys, and
buying an epic 10 million share-equivalent calls in the next two weeks,
without pause, compassion or remorse, and with just one thought: crush, mangle and destroy Ackman!

RT: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the head of the Russian Liberal-Democratic
Party, said that no meteor fell in the Urals on Friday – the US “tested a
new weapon” over the region, he claimed.

“You’re like some primitive tribe. What meteorite?” he said, adding that space is a “universe that has its own laws.” Zhirinovsky is a politician well-known for making similar eccentric statements. “When something falls – it’s man-made. People are warmongers and provocateurs,” he explained.Earlier
in the week, US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly tried and
failed to reach Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov by telephone for two
consecutive days. The State Department said that Kerry wanted to discuss
the recent North Korean nuclear test, as well as the conflict in Syria.However, Zhirinovsky claimed that the top US diplomat “wanted to warn Lavrov about the provocation and that it may affect Russia,” RIA Novosti reported. On
Thursday, Moscow confirmed that on February 12 it had received
Washington’s request to organize an urgent phone conversation between
Kerry and Lavrov. The Foreign Ministry said, however, that State
Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland was “inaccurate with her
statements” regarding their inability to get in touch with Lavrov for
two days.“Unfortunately, the conversation could not be held
because of the intensive schedule of the Russian foreign minister and
his working tour to African countries,”

RT:Asher Kohn isn’t an urban planner, but he has managed to draw up
designs for an entire city — and a drone-proof one, at that. But
according to Kohn, a town that’s impermeable to the newest instruments
of war isn't just a novelty. It's a necessity.
“Architecture against drones is not just a science-fiction scenario but a contemporary imperative,”
says Kohn, a 25-year-old American-born law student who is currently
living in the Netherlands. And although architecture and urban planning
are rarely core classes of most law school curriculums, earlier this
year Kohn handed in a simple blueprint for an assignment offered by a
professor at the Sam Fox School of Design in St. Louis, Missouri.“I
was assigned ‘military architecture’ and realized that for every huge
military advance that made it easier to blow up urban areas, there was
usually a passive response invented within a generation,” he tells Britain’s Daily Mail.“So
I was wondering what the response would be for drones if drones are the
next great advance like artillery and airplanes were.”

By Robert Blumen: What is deflation? According to dictionary.com, it is “a fall in the general price level or a contraction
of credit and available money.”
Falling prices. That sounds good, especially if you have set some cash set aside and are thinking about a major purchase.
But as some additional research with Google would seem to demonstrate,
that would be a naïve and simple-minded conclusion. According to
received wisdom, deflation is
a serious economic disease. As the St. Louis Fed would have us believe,

While the idea of lower prices may sound attractive,
deflation is a real concern for several reasons. Deflation discourages
spending and investment because
consumers, expecting prices to fall further, delay purchases, preferring
instead to save and wait for even lower prices. Decreased spending, in
turn,
lowers company sales and profits, which eventually increases
unemployment.

The problem with deflation, then, is that it feeds on itself, destroying
the economy along the way. It is the macro equivalent of a roach motel: perilously easy to enter but impossible to leave. The problem, you
see, is that deflation reduces consumption, which reduces production, eventually shutting down all economic activity.

By Agence France-Presse:Anti-anxiety drugs find their way into wastewater where they make
fish more fearless and antisocial, with potentially serious ecological
consequences, researchers said Thursday.Scientists examining perch exposed to the sedative Oxazepam — which,
like many medications, passes through the human body — found that it
made them more likely to leave their school and strike out on their own.“Normally, perch are shy and hunt in schools. This is a known
strategy for survival and growth,” said ecologist Tomas Brodin, lead
author of the article, which will be published in Friday’s edition of
Science.

“But those who swim in Oxazepam became considerably bolder,” he said,
putting the fish at greater risk of being eaten by predators.Brodin and other researchers at Sweden’s Umea University tested the
fish by exposing them to drug concentrations corresponding to those
found in wastewater in densely populated areas of the Scandinavian
country.In addition to growing bolder, the fish also ate more quickly, which the researchers fear could disrupt the ecological balance.“In waters where fish begin to eat more efficiently, this can affect
the composition of species, for example, and ultimately lead to
unexpected effects, such as increased risk of algal blooming,”

By Madison Ruppert: In a disturbing new report, it is revealed that every person who
downloads an application through Google Play has had their personal
information including name, email and address passed on to the developer
without their knowledge or consent.While this might be troubling, perhaps even more troubling is the highly secretive relationship between Google and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), their ties to the U.S. intelligence community and the lack of transparency in their so-called transparency reports.Still, this “flaw,” uncovered by an app developer in Sydney,
Australia, is no small matter. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the
report by news.com.au is the point that the “flaw” actually “appears to be by design.”The developer, Dan Nolan, has created an application that hit number
one in the Australian app store and he says that he does not feel
comfortable being the custodian of all of that personal information.Furthermore, Nolan says that there is no reason any developer should
have all of this highly personal information at their fingertips.“Let me make this crystal clear, every App purchase you make on
Google Play gives the developer your name, suburb and email address with
no indication that this information is actually being transferred,”writes Nolan on his blog.“With the information I have available to me through the checkout
portal I could track down and harass users who left negative reviews or
refunded the app purchase,”

Submitted by Tyler Durden:The great trade, capital flow and debt imbalances that were built up over the preceding two decades must reverse themselves. Michael
Pettis notes, however, that these imbalances can continue for many
years, but at some point they become unsustainable and the world must
adjust by reversing those imbalances. One way or the other, in other
words, the world will rebalance. But there are worse ways and better
ways it can do so. Pettis adds that, any policy that does not
clearly result in a reversal of the deep debt, trade and capital
imbalances of the past decade is a policy that cannot be sustained. It
is likely to be political considerations that determine how quickly the
rebalancing processes take place and whether they do so in ways that
set the stages for future growth or future stagnation. Pettis' guess is
that we have ended the first stage of the global crisis, and most of the
deepest problems have been identified. In 2013 we will begin to see how
policymakers respond and what the future outlook is likely to be. The following 10 themes are what he will be watching this year in order to figure out where we are likely to end up.Authored by Michael Pettis: What I'll Be Watching In 2013,

I’ll be watching a number of
things in 2013 in order to get a better sense of what the future will
bring. On January 22 Princeton University Press will be publishing my book, The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road Ahead,
and in the last chapter of the book I argue that the great trade,
capital flow and debt imbalances that were built up over the preceding
two decades must reverse themselves. Imbalances can continue for many
years, I argue, but at some point they become unsustainable and the
world must adjust by reversing those imbalances.

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Dear Reader

Are YOU Involved or Institutionalized? Our belief that the global economic crisis would persist and deepen is being vindicated and current events are now as clear as ever on the matter. Time for all of us to wake up, stand up and be counted or continue to lose all our liberties. Protect your homes and families. The sun will still rise but financial chaos and suffering due to the global fascist banksters' greed and corruption, slaughter due to the MIC's directed world wars in our name etc. is not pretty. We are feeling the effect on our society the size and like of which we have never known.

We are way past being surprised at the blanket suppression of this information by the BBC and main stream media propaganda machines. Information is clearly available elsewhere and unchallenged, accounts for a far more realistic rendition of what we have actually seen and what we continue to see develop, whilst the main stream news put out leaves many confused and bewildered, 99.9% of us wrong footed and the awakened indignant. As we can now see, the apparently 'soft fascist' powers that be aim to block these alternative avenues of information. Book up, "Long Live the Evolution."Feel free to kopimi. Angelo Agathangelou.

P.S. The MHRM, are calling out the constant misinformation disseminated by and maintain our open challenge especially to western radical feminists, to point out just one area where government in the UK, Europe or anywhere else in the English speaking world disadvantages women and girls when compared with men and boys, ...the wage disparity myth having long been debunked by serious academics and statisticians. So far this challenge has remained unanswered. Western feminism is obsolete.

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N.B.

These pages exist because we believe information from all perspectives should be aired, they do not necessarily reflect our views unless explicitly stated. We do not intend to cause offense, but we feel there is a need for such a shift in our society that to call it change rather than evolution would be an understatement. A velvet revolution towards living with reality for the individual, the family and society. A revolution towards living within our means and taking responsibility for ourselves, instead of mortgaging the future of our children to bloated leech faux democracy for the benefit of Ponzi 'banksters' and The Military Industrial Complex.